<html>
<head>
  <title>MediaGoblin 0.3.3: Pixel Party</title>
  <meta name="date" content="2013-03-12 10:20" />
  <meta name="author" content="Deb Nicholson" />
</head>
<body>
<p class="centered">
  <img src="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_banner.png"
       alt="MediaGoblin 0.3.3: Pixel Party banner" />
  <br />
  <i>
    16-bit pixelized Gavroche rockin' out with some
    <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org">Liberated Pixel Cup</a>
    friends.  Dual licensed under
    <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA
      3.0</a>
      and <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html">GNU GPL
      version 3</a> or later.
    <a href="/blog_images/gavroche_lpc_sprite.xcf">Pixel art Gavroche</a>
    by Christopher Allan Webber,
    <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org/static/lpc-style-guide/assets.html">everything else</a>
    by
    <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org/static/lpc-style-guide/authors.html"
       >LPC base artwork team</a>.
  </i>
</p>

<p>Welcome to MediaGoblin 0.3.3! Our tech lead Chris Webber recently
finished <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/liberated-pixel-cup-art-winners-announced">awarding</a> <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/code-judging-is-in">prizes</a>
to the <a href="http://lpc.opengameart.org/">Liberated Pixel Cup</a>
contest participants. MediaGoblin is shaping up to be a perfect place
to build video game artwork where there is usually a unified theme or
look to characters, items and backgrounds. When we first started
building MediaGoblin, we envisioned a freedom-respecting collaboration
space for artists -- a place where they could share images, videos and
sound. It would be easy to control who to share with and simple to
figure out how work was licensed. We've made some great progress
towards these goals in this release.</p>

<p>First of all, let's take a look at what got easier for users. We built
a fancy new dropdown menu so you can see all the upload tools up at
the top of your home page -- or not -- you can easily toggle back and
forth.</p>

<p class="blog_image">
  <a href="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_dropdown_menu.png">
  <img src="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_dropdown_menu-scaled.png"
       alt="Dropdown menu" />
  </a>
</p>

<p>When you upload stuff, you'll get a nice mnemonic URL. Maybe you
hadn't noticed the funny code URL's? Or maybe you have noticed because
we inadvertently helped you send the wrong link to the right person..
or the right link to the wrong person? Anyway, they are fixed up all
nice now. You get a URL with your title with a couple numbers at the
end to make it unique.</p>

<p>We also made the collection creation a bit more verbose and hopefully
more intuitive. Mmmm, verbiage...</p>

<p class="blog_image">
  <a href="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_new_collections_button.png">
  <img src="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_new_collections_button.png"
       alt="New collections button" />
  </a>
</p>

<p>We made a number of improvements to the back-end handling of video.
We fixed the video thumbnails. We also made big improvements to the
way files get copied around which makes much better use of memory, a
critical boon for video storage. Also, MediaGoblin no longer
automatically transcodes videos that don't need it. If you're
uploading the right size .webm or an .ogg theora file, you can host
them directly without conversion. Plus we tweaked the video player so
it resizes with your browser, which is much nicer for mobile devices!<p>


<p>Our last improvement to the user experience is the ability to set a
default <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a>
license for all your uploads. You can still set individual items
separately, but if you have a favorite license you use for most of
your stuff, you won't have to specify it each time you upload new
files.</p>

<p class="blog_image">
  <a href="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_license_preference.png">
  <img src="/blog_images/mediagoblin_0.3.3_license_preference-scaled.png"
       alt="New license selection dropdown." />
  </a>
</p>

<p>Oh, and you might notice above that you can now also delete your
account from your user settings!</p>

<p>Pluginifying proceeds at a pleasing pace! We moved the OpenStreetMap
and Geolocation function out to a plugin. It's still included by
default, but it helped us to test the plugin interface and allows
users to put something else in there if they want to. We also refined
the template hooks to make it easier for plugin authors to hook their
features in exactly where they want them, top, side, bottom whatever
part of the page makes sense for their specific plugin.</p>

<p>As part of our goal to make MediaGoblin a leaner and easier
install, we eliminated a library from the installation process. We've
also started working towards getting MediaGoblin packaged with popular
GNU/Linux distributions. (Afraid we'll skip your
favorite? <a href="/pages/join.html">Help us get it in there</a> and
we won't!) Expect more news on this exciting front in the next few
months.</p>

<p>All of the fundraising gifts are out! (Well, a few international
rewards left, but we'll get to them this week!) Hooray!! As much fun
as it was to watch the money/progress bar and mail things out to all
our lovely supporters, in the future we are looking for less labor
intensive funding models. Feel free
to <a href="mailto:press@mediagoblin.org">send us</a> your ideas for
grants, potential collaborators with access to funding and
customization contracts that will help us fund the future of
MediaGoblin!</p>

<p>The last word goes to thanking of all our contributors;
translators, designers, documenters, coders, bug-senders, nitpickers
and promoters.  As our codebase gets larger, lots of things get a bit
more... well, complicated. We really appreciate the folks who have
been around for a while and know how things works around here and we
are super-grateful to the new folks who have been willing to jump in
and learn how things work around here.  Thanks to: Aleksej Serdjukov,
András Veres-Szentkirályi, Christopher Allan Webber, Deb Nicholson,
Elrond (from Samba TNG), Jef van Schendel, Joar Wandborg, Mark
Holmquist, Odin Hørthe Omdal, Runar Petursson, Sebastian Spaeth, Simon
Fondrie-Teitler, Stefano Zacchiroli, Tiberiu C. Turbureanu, and Tran
Thanh Bao (pythonsnake)!  MediaGoblin wouldn't exist without all of
you!</p>

<p>As always, if you're interested in more details, check
the <a href="http://docs.mediagoblin.org/siteadmin/relnotes.html">release
notes</a>!</p>

<p>Got ideas for plugins or feedback for
us? <a href="/pages/join.html">Talk to us!</a> Visit our IRC, it's
<a href="http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=mediagoblin">#mediagoblin
on freenode.net</a>! If you want regular
updates, <a href="http://lists.mediagoblin.org/listinfo/devel">join
the mailing list</a> or email us
at <a href="mailto:press@mediagoblin.org">press@mediagoblin.org</a></p>
</body>
</html>